Scout

The Scout has the greatest mobility of all the TF2 classes; two jumps and an impressive 133% movement speed makes him extremely difficult to track down and even to kill once he is found. The Scout carries a Scattergun, which can deal tremendous damage to an opponent in close quarters. With such high movement speed, it isn't difficult to get close to people; the only trick is staying alive once at a close range. The Scout has only 125 base health, tied for the least out of all the classes along with the Engineer, Sniper and Spy.

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The Scout is a highly mobile "clean up" class, used to capture points and move in and out of fights to deal and avoid as much damage as possible. In standard 6v6 play, a team will have 2 Scouts. When playing this class, one will be expected to successfully capture points, control the flank, and be able to clean up the damage put out by heavy classes (Soldier and Demoman). Generally speaking, a Scout will have a high number of kills and a moderate amount of damage - diving in to kill already damaged players is the primary cause of this. Scouts are also often the best candidates for off-classing, depending on the situation. The secret to the Scout class is going into a fight and catching enemies unaware. The Scout is usually more expendable than the other classes, excluding the Roaming Soldier.

Some teams like to assign roles to their scouts to keep everyone coordinated. Having a "passive" Scout and an "aggressive" Scout on the team keeps inexperienced players from getting out of position (either resulting in death from aggression or missed opportunities from passiveness). The "passive" Scout job is roughly to protect the Demoman and help the Medic build Über when an opportunity arises. While he still wants to help out his fellow Scout on the flank and clean up damage, protecting the Demoman is his main objective. When there are stalemate situations in a match, the passive Scout is the one that will build the Medic's ÜberCharge using his Boston Basher. The aggressive Scout usually goes for kills and high damage on the flank. If a player is weak, he will chase that player down and kill him. The problem with this role-oriented approach is that when a Scout is smart enough to know when to be passive and when to be aggressive, it is more efficient for him to switch roles when a situation calls for it, rather than getting stuck in a mindset that can be very detrimental to his team. Most high-level teams avoid this passive versus aggressive assignment system, but it can help teams that lack the coordination and game sense.

The Scout's role is severely diminished in Highlander, as his fragging capabilities are fairly limited by full-time high-damage per second classes, such as the Heavy or the Engineer. Because of this, the Scout is used often more as a utility class, helping the team by being on the flank, capturing points and objectives, and sometimes following up on damage dealt by the combo. A scout can also be used to focus classes, which can cause large problems for your team, such as sniper. Most Payload and Attack/Defend maps can greatly limit the Scout's usefulness due to the map's tendency to clump everyone together, but on certain King of the Hill maps, a good scout can score a high amount of points, due to a large amount of flanking routes, which are available.

Highlander leagues allow a greater variety of scout unlocks than 6v6 leagues do, which allows for interesting strategies with unlocks, like Mad Milk and Bonk! Atomic Punch. The scout's role can be enhanced by any of these, leading to be a more supportive class that splashes Mad Milk during pushes, or a pick/harassment class that runs to enemy spawn with Bonk! As long as the Scout plays smart and stays alive, opportunities to flank and fight directly come up just like in 6v6.

The stock Scattergun is by far the most widely used primary weapon for the scout in Competitive Play. Due to the weapon's high clip size and damage output at mid-close range, the Scattergun gives the user a high and reliable damage output.

The Force-A-Nature (often abbreviated to FaN) is sparsely used in most formats but can sometimes be seen in Highlander, where a scout's damage capability is less important to the team. The weapon's unique knockback ability can allow for more effective positioning, allowing the Scout to jump to higher places or push away enemies; but ultimately the weapon suffers from inconsistent damage because of its very small clip size, and because its knockback sends enemies out of the Scout's range.

The Shortstop only has 4 shots per clip but reloads all shots at once, and has tighter weapon spread making it more accurate at long range. It also has a rarely useful melee-ranged knockback ability. While the Shortstop fires twice as fast as the default Scattergun, it takes thrice the time to reload. However, the weapon's biggest downfall is in its reduced pellet size (4 pellets per shot); resulting in marginally less damage at close ranges.

The Soda Popper is similar to the FaN with an increased fire rate and two shot clip, but it also gives five extra jumps upon activating its 'Hype' mechanic, and faster reloading. The additional mobility granted by Hype makes the scout extremely difficult to hit for projectile based classes (Soldier and Demoman), and the quicker shooting and reloading makes Scout deal more damage both in the short-term and long-term, so to give other classes a balanced chance to kill Scout, the Soda Popper remains banned.

The Baby Face's Blaster is arguably the weakest Scout primary. It allows the Scout build a "Boost" meter when he deals damage in order to move much faster, in exchange for moving 10% slower by default and a smaller clip size. However, taking damage or double jumping lowers Boost, which forces the user to play extremely passively in order to make use of the weapon's only upside. This can make for a very difficult and overall less effective playstyle.

The Back Scatter is typically ignored by most players primarily due to its single strength, mini-crits from behind, not occurring enough to outweigh its weaknesses, lower clip size and accuracy. The weapon is most useful when flanking the enemy, as it can one-shot all light classes from behind (without overheal).

The Pistol is the Scout's stock secondary. It holds 12 shots and reloads all 12 shots at once. It is used almost always in 6v6 as it is the best secondary for dispatching hurt enemies and doing damage. It is often considered the most reliable secondary in competitive play.

Bonk! Atomic Punch is a Scout secondary that allows the user to go into an invincible state for a short amount of time. It is most often used in Highlander (9v9) to flank or get behind the enemy team in situations where the scout would otherwise be having trouble doing work. Bonk can also be used to distract the enemy team and give the other members of your team an opening to push or get an advantage. Bonk is also great distracting a sentry gun from the rest of your team when you wish to try to attack a point without uber, however risky.

Crit-a-Cola is a Scout secondary that allows a user to gain a +25% speed increase as well as the scout gaining mini-crits on all weapons, and taking 10% more damage for the 8 seconds that this item lasts.

Mad Milk is a Scout secondary that allows 60% of damage done to enemies covered in it to be restored to the attacking player's health. It can often be used in highlander on koth maps, or maps in which players can easily get bunched together, because the increase healing which it allows give a significant advantage over your opponent. Mad Milk can also be used to extinguish teammates. Doing so makes the jar charge 20% faster

The Winger is a Scout secondary pistol that deals 15% more damage and has a 60% smaller clip size. The player gains 25% higher jumps when it is deployed. This makes it easier for scouts to get height advantage and also dodge.

The Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol is a Scout pistol that grants plus +5 health per hit to the wearer and no fall damage when deployed at the cost of 25% slower firing rate and 20% more damage from all sources.

The Flying Guillotine is a meat cleaver that when thrown at the enemy does around ~50 damage, and then continues to damage through bleed for 5 seconds. If thrown from a far enough distance it will mini-crit. Hitting a stunned enemy will do critical damage (150). This item takes ~6 seconds to recharge.

The Sandman has the same stats as the default bat except upon clicking alt+fire it will launch a ball which will stun the enemy from 1-7 seconds depending on the distance. This item will grant -15 health to the wearer.

The Boston Basher is a bat that causes the enemy to bleed for 5 seconds upon landing a successful hit. If the hit is missed, it will cause self-bleed instead. However, this self-bleeding can be used to build up the Medic's charge, which is very useful, especially in 6v6 matches.

The Candy Cane does the same exact damage as the Bat, however, when a opponent is killed while this item is equipped they will drop a small health kit. Any explosive damage taken by the wearer will do an extra 25% damage.

The Fan O'War does 75% less damage than the default Bat. Upon hitting the opponent, it will mark them for death. (A skull icon will appear above their head.) This will cause all damage taken by the enemy to be mini-crits for 15 seconds. The weapon itself will crit instead of whenever it should normaly mini-crit.

The Sun-on-a-Stick gives you a 100% chance of dealing critical hits against burning players, but it only deals 25% base melee damage. Works well if a friendly Pyro applies afterburn to enemies, so the Scout can deliver the finishing blow. It deals 90 crit-damage.

The Atomizer grants a Scout a third jump that deals 10 damage to the Scout when activated. It also has 20% reduced damage towards players and a 30% slower swing time making it a very ineffective option for base melee damage.

The Wrap Assassin will launch a glass ball upon clicking alt+fire. The glass ball will shatter and inflict bleed damage on the enemy for 5 seconds. This item takes 15 seconds to recharge. The weapon itself does 70% less damage than the default bat.